Monday, 31 December 2012

Un Flic,
Jean-Pierre Melville’s final film, wasn’t just an excellent swansong for the
French auteur, it was also the perfect follow-up to his previous film, Le Cercle Rouge. Like the latter movie,
this too was a stylish and existential thriller centered on a heist; but, while
Alain Delon played the role of a laconic criminal in the earlier film, he
swapped places to the more agreeable side of law here – yet in either case it
didn’t end on a happy note for his character. The film begins with a bank
robbery on a particularly rainy day, staged by 4 men led by Simon (Richard
Crenna), a nightclub owner. Ironically, Commissioner Coleman (Delon) happens to
be a friend of Simon and a regular visitor to his nightclub; he’s even having
an affair on the sly with Simon’s platinum blonde fiancée (Catherine Deneuve).
Coleman has utmost derision towards criminals and bends the law whenever
necessary to get his job done; he leads his life and does his work in the most
cold, jaded and existentially detached manner imaginable. The measured pace
with which the plot moves forward, alternately focusing on the two opposing
sides, allowed terrific development of the various characters, as well as, superb
build-up of the film’s mood and palpably melancholic tone. The atmospheric, washed
out visuals brilliantly evoked the perpetual sense of doom and fatalism that
the film has been gift wrapped with, leading to the underplayed but subtly
affecting climax. The performances, in sync with Melville’s style, were completely
restrained. An audacious drug robbery scene, carried out by Simon on a moving
train, remains one of the hallmarks for the film.

There are experimental arthouse films, and there
are experimental arthouse films without the former’s seamless quality. The
likes of Chris Marker’s La Jetee,
Vera Chytilova’s Daisies, or more
recently Leos Carax’s Holy Motors are
glowing examples of the former. Sergei Parajanov’s much acclaimed work The Color of Pomegranates,
unfortunately, clearly fall in the latter category. Purportedly a biopic on the
revered Armenian poet and musician Sayat-Nova, this was a highly whimsical and
surreal take on what his life and his ideas were representative of. Parajanov
presented the poet’s tortured and troubled conscience in the form of a series
of disjointed tableaus, aimed at capturing his inner self and his religious
influences. The film, consequently, is filled with Armenian imageries and
religious icons to that effect, and is bereft of any conventional narrative
structure. Parajanov’s creative choices and the film’s experimental nature, unfortunately,
were too deliberately brazen for its good – so much as to make the works of
Bunuel,Fellini, Tarkovsky, Godard et al seem mainstream in comparison. The vibrant colour schema was
eminently noteworthy, but its visual design, too, was obsessively
idiosyncratic. Further, not only was the film so heavily laden with symbolisms
as to make it a burdensome exercise for the viewers to keep a track of, some of
them were also too damn cryptic for a non-Armenian person. As for the symbols
which were decipherable – and there was no dearth of them – they singularly
lacked of subtlety. I understand that this film has been celebrated by various
quarters, but simply failed to strike a chord with me – intellectually or
otherwise. Interestingly, Sofiko Chiaureli, the Georgian actress and
Parajanov’s muse, played six different characters in the film.

Sunday, 30 December 2012

Damnationwas a watershed moment for Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr, as it established the
visual style and rigorous formalism that defined his works thenceforth. It was
also a terrific introductory piece to his follow-up film, Satantango. The protagonist here is a morose, alcohol-addicted
pseudo-intellectual called Karrer (Miklos B. Szekely) who is in love with a highly
alluring bar singer (Veli Kerekes). However, unfortunately for him, she is highly
fickle about their affair, and she is married to a man who scares him. So, when
the manager of Titanik, the bar where she croons, offers him a shady job, he
passes it on to her broke husband. This doesn’t just give him the opportunity
for some quality intimacy with her, it also provides him on a platter the
chance to exact a sweet revenge. The plot might remind one of 40s noir, but
Tarr’s tonal, thematic and stylistic decisions made this an austere and bleakly
beautiful portrayal of small-town ennui, anomie, isolation, existential
alienation, moral decrepitude and stasis. Shot in high-contrast B/W, using his
trademark audacious single takes, the film’s visual signature is quintessential
Tarr. The desolate, depopulated and grimy wastelands, and the perpetual state
of rain and mud, against which he juxtaposed his weary characters, were
essential to the film’s mood and tone, as were the long moments of silence and
inaction. Tarr’s fascination with long, loosely choreographed dance sequences, too,
was on mesmeric display here. Interestingly, it is a rarity in Tarr’s
canon in that it comprised of far more music – albeit played on-screen as
opposed to background score – than is generally the case with his films,
including a lovely song.

Saturday, 29 December 2012

Filled with understated humour, wry observations
and humanism, Renoir’s Grand Illusion
was both a deeply anti-war film and a subtle commentary on societal differences
borne out of class, race and nationalities. Captain de Boieldieu (Pierre
Fesnay), an aristocratic senior officer, and Lt. Marechal (Jean Gabin), a
proletariat pilot, are taken captive in a German POW camp, commanded by Captain
von Rauffenstein (Renoir’s idol, Erich von Stroheim), during a reconnaissance
mission. After numerous failed attempts, Marechal finally manages to escape
along with a Jewish inmate, and they take refuge in the home of a lonely German
widow (Dita Parlo) during the course of their arduous journey. Renoir painted a
deftly textured picture on the utter futility of war. And, by displaying such
anachronistic gentlemanly conduct between the two parties, the film’s grandest
illusion was brilliantly depicted – made starker on hindsight by the horrors
that WWII has become synonymous with. Yet, for all its poetic realism and its humane
portrayal of men and women trapped in the cogs of world politics, Renoir also
provided a sly peek into our ingrained social barriers. Boieldieu and
Rauffenstein, despite belonging to opposite camps nationally, are bound by
their aristocratic heritage and mores; ironically, Marechal and his fellow
escapee are naturally strung together by their class and nationality, but the
question of race lingers at the back of their minds. Boieldieu and Marechal,
despite their national obligations, represent inherently opposing social
orders. Luminously photographed and excellently enacted, these paradoxical
sociopolitical subtexts, and the juxtaposition of old and new orders, made this
a universally relevant masterwork whose resonance has only increased with the
passage of time.

Friday, 28 December 2012

(Cinemascope thanks
Ms. Camiele White for this excellent take on the use of silence in cinema, which is particularly relevant in this darn noisy world of ours. The 1920 short that she begins her essay with, holds a special place for her - and not just for cinematic reasons - adding an affecting personal touch to this fine piece)

Unlike many of my
other posts, this one didn’t come at the hands and sounds of Björk. I was
gifted a very rare video – a 10-minute clip of an early silent film, in fact.
It was the first (and to my knowledge, only) silent film starring an all Native
American cast. My undying admiration and love of my Native American heritage
led me to watch every second of this silent piece of cinematic history, and I’m
not ashamed to admit that I was almost in tears. However, it wasn’t just the
pull of my ancestry (my tribes being Blackfoot on my father’s side and Cherokee
on my mother’s) that claimed all the working pieces of my heart. Rather it was
the brilliance with which each moment was portrayed, the silence giving depth
and purpose to each movement, each exclamation of physicality.

The film, The
Daughter of Dawn, is an intimate look at the tradition and beauty of
the Cheyenne
people. However, more than that it’s simply the love story of two people who
were promised to others but found their soul’s counterpart in each other. It’s
a common tale, dating back as early as the 15th century, most likely
even earlier than that. It’s also a story that through its many permutations
can get bogged down with cliché and unoriginality.

But therein lay the beauty
inherent in silent film. There are no words, no verbal inflections or cues. All
the audience has is the use of human expression and interaction and a loose
sense of a story. The grandeur in silence is its ability to transcend
expectation and give new form and texture to something as simple as a love
story.

There are films even
beyond the silent genre that manage to encapsulate their brightest moments in
the quiet space between scenes, the whispering tension between two characters.
Some of the most incredible in my memory seem to find the fine balance between intimacy
and physical largeness.

It’s pretty well
documented that I tout Japanese animation as probably the Mecca of all things subtlety. But the truth
is, the understanding of how to give the story room to express itself is
something so innately ingrained in the very fabric of the culture itself,
there’s little doubt who all the real masters of this concept of silence are.
Though the films exhibit grand sweeps of illustration, form and soundtrack, the
truest moments of elegance and bigness come from the quiet times when even a
whisper can break the fragility of the moment. One of the most heartbreaking
films ever produced, Takahata Isao’s Grave of the Fireflies opens with a
throbbing silence, a pulsating murmur of a dying memory in the heart of a man
forced to accept the maturity and fire of wartime Japan. The snapshots of his life
drenched in blood and the refuse of adult anger and greed were all posed in
shocking bluntness, each moment completely devoid of sound, save perhaps the
crackle of fire that seemed to underscore the background music of the film.

However, while Fireflies was a testament to the power
of absolute silence in jagged moments of anger and isolation, a film like Les
Triplettes de Belleville was a master class in the art of dialogue – or
lack thereof in this case. Indeed, there were perhaps five full lines of
dialogue in all 80 minutes of the film; however, the music and animation
managed to give great texture and depth to the story itself. Indeed, Sylvain
Chomet seems to be a master of storytelling, allowing the characters’
experiences to make up for any lack of verbal communication. It’s all in the
eyes, in the minute details. The sound itself is secondary, creating a
thrumming background music that allows the story to unfold through the music
and the movement of the characters.

Of course, the best
horror and thriller utilize silence to give the films height and unending
cinematic scope. Such films as Se7enand The Exorcist rely on the
moments between moments to give the story texture. The tension is palpable, one
is literally able to reach out and grab the thickness of certain scenes as if
the film itself were attempting to kidnap the viewer and throw her headlong
into the madness.

Then there are films
like Nakata Hideo’s Ringu. Talk about incredible use of silence, the film is
drenched in an unsettling amount of silence, provoking viewers to almost have
to fill in the spaces. But what’s so masterful about the piece is that it simply
basks in its own largeness without muddying up the story with erroneous bits of
flash. It’s as simple as taking a photo, each shot only as big as it’s supposed
to be. On the contrary, a film like Miike Takashi’s Audition is all big
movements and gruesome moments. Though also heavily steeped in silence, in
contrast to the other films, it’s the moments of sound that are so poignant.
One almost yearns for silence in order to ease the sickening feeling of
foreboding that comes whenever the crazed love interest opens her mouth and
traps us in her grisly universe.

I’ve always found the
lack of sound an even more exhilarating form of storytelling than even the most
astute dialogue. It forces the actors to give in to the drama of the moment,
each second poised at attention and ready to burst. I’ve found that even in the
absence of music, there’s a bubbling anticipation that these silent moments
seem to bring to an explosive crescendo without the crashing of cymbals or the
heavy cut of bode instruments. Sometimes, my friends, silence is the breaking
point that forces us to reexamine our understanding of sound.

Camiele
White suffers from too much film information. In order to remedy her psychosis
she’s decided to write about it. Right now, she’s trying something a bit
different and writes has her own blog called Madasa Writing. If you want to engage
in a little conversation (at your own risk) she can be reached at madasa.writing@gmail.com